


Hope in the darkness

by gideongrace



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, HIV/AIDS Crisis, M/M, Post-Season/Series 03, Sad and Happy, it's 1986 and they live in san francisco
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-17 00:47:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28715988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gideongrace/pseuds/gideongrace
Summary: Billy and Steve and Robin move to San Francisco and it's great. They can finally, fully, publically be themselves. They're out of Hawkins and away from all the prying eyes and small minds and sharp-toothed monsters.Only, it turns out, not all monsters have teeth. Not all monsters are towering ten foot terrors.Some monsters are small. Too small to see.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 4
Kudos: 45





	Hope in the darkness

**Author's Note:**

> So I had FEELINGS. And so I wrote this. 
> 
> Like, I think a lot about all the people the queer community lost to the aids crisis. Almost an entire generation. 
> 
> It sucks and it makes me sad and I hate it. 
> 
> I also think a lot about how I was a small kid in a small town in the 90s and how no one ever talked about it. It's like I lived through it but also like I didn't at the same time. 
> 
> So. Yeah.

The one thing Billy can't stop noticing about living in San Francisco is... it's better, but also... it's worse. 

Because yeah, him and Steve, they can be together now. They can hold hands and kiss on the street corner and they're a part of something now. They're a part of a community, it's no longer the two of them and Robin against the world, only truly safe behind the walls of Robin's apartment, they have friends now, but...

Those friends, they talk about death like they talk about the weather. Everyone has a good funeral suit present in their closet good and front and center. 

They have friends now but...

For how long?

They have a community now but...

For how long?

Back in Hawkins, the trouble was the town. People with their small minds, having to keep to themselves and that's not to mention the monsters. Because there were also the monsters.

But in San Francisco, the problem's not the city. The problem is the world. 

In San Francisco the problem's not that the people are small-minded it's that the monsters out here are too small to see. Too small to fight. Too small to even really... understand. 

And Billy never thought that he'd ever long for Hawkins. Or that he'd ever miss the monsters with their long and dangerous teeth and their long and slobbering tongues and their high pitched and inhuman cries. 

But he does miss having monsters he could  _ fight. _ Monsters that, at least in theory, could be physically beaten to death and bested. 

And in Hawkins...

In Hawkins, it was like...

It was like the virus was happening somewhere else and to other people. Nobody in Hawkins much ever talked about it, no one there had ever had it, so to a degree, it was like it didn't exist there. 

Like yes, it was on the news. And he knew about it. 

But he didn't have to think about it every single day. He didn't have to know it personally. He didn't have to see it, day in and day out, like it's some old friend that just won't leave, or like a stain that just won't quite come out of the carpet. 

Here he has to see it.

On the same street corners he so joyfully kisses Steve on, he has to see it.

Every day he sees people walking by, their cheeks gaunt, their legs bowed, their backs bent like standing up straight is just too much effort for them anymore, and he knows. He sees it and he knows. 

And it's not like he'd go back.

If this is the price he has to pay to be allowed to exist as himself, his real self, in public, then he'll pay it.

If this is the price he has to pay to be able to kiss Steve and tease Robin about her crush on the girl at the coffee shop loudly and proudly and publically, then he'll do it. 

He'll do it. 

But he won't like it.

He won't ever like it. 

As he walks into work to hear Simon talking on the phone about how nice the flowers were at Stephen's memorial service the night before, sounding just as normal, just as plain as you please, like he's talking about any topic other than death, like he's used to this, like this is normal for him, Billy makes himself a promise. Right there on the spot.

Billy makes himself a promise. 

He will pay the price it costs to live here but he won't like it and he won't get used to it. He won't ever allow himself to become too comfortable with it. He's done that enough for one lifetime. 

He's done that enough for several lifetimes.

Just shrugged and decided that it was the way it was and there wasn't ever going to be anything else or anything to about it.

Just held the pain, the bruises, the fear, the rage, up right in close until it poured into him, steeped into his soul in ways he's still fighting himself to let go of, in ways he might never quite be free from. 

He won't do the same with this. 

He won't allow this pain to become his normal, his every day, his natural until he's what he was—a snarling beast with an itch he can't remember he's supposed to scratch. 

No, he won't let this become his normal. Not now and not ever. 

And he won't let Simon sink into that darkness, either, whether he realizes that's where he's heading or not. 

So he puts a hand on Simon's shoulder and he tells him, "Hey, I'm sorry about Stephen," once Simon has hung up the phone and he lets him nod and he lets him cry. He gathers him up in a big, tight hug and he holds his friend until it's time to open up the shop for the day. 

He copes the best he can and he loves his boyfriend and his friends the best he can and he hopes that it's enough. That it will be enough. That it  _ can _ be enough. 

He hopes. 

He hopes. 


End file.
